Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, and so on. A wireless communication network may include a number of base stations that can support communication for a number of mobile stations. A mobile station (MS) may communicate with a base station (BS) via a downlink and an uplink. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the base station to the mobile station, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the mobile station to the base station. A base station may transmit data and control information on the downlink to a mobile station and/or may receive data and control information on the uplink from the mobile station.
A mobile station or a base station may include one or more analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), for converting received, amplified, filtered, and downconverted analog signals to digital signals for additional processing in the digital domain, for example. Several types of ADCs are available, each with varying advantages and disadvantages. For example, a successive approximation register (SAR) ADC may provide an area and power-efficient architecture for low to medium accuracy analog-to-digital conversion applications. A SAR ADC may use a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and a comparator to approximate a digital value corresponding to an analog input. Another type of ADC referred to as a flash ADC may provide a faster conversion speed at the cost of an exponential increase in power and area consumption.